Wednesday Night Fights and Yomi

Every Wednesday in Los Angeles, California, there's a large gathering of fighting game players who compete in various games. This gathering was started by Alex Valle. You guys might not realize the significance of this event, so I'll try to put it in perspective.

Alex Valle has won too many tournaments to count, but in my opinion, the tournament win that started his long reign of Street Fighter Legend was his victory at B3 in 1996 in the game Street Fighter Alpha 2. This tournament was put on by Tom Cannon (founder of shoryuken.com) and Tony Cannon (creator of ggpo networking). It was a landmark event in the entire history of US fighting games, as it was the first time players from all over the country (and from Canada) really came together to face each other. Valle dramatically revealed his then-secret technique, now known as the Valle-CC, when he defeated another Street Fighter Legend: John Choi.

The reason I'm telling you any of that is to put it in perspective that Wednesday Night Fight events draw about 130 people each week, I hear, which is larger than the attendance of the entire B3 tournament. Every week! This event has more impact than just in Los Angeles, too. It's streamed so anyone in the world can watch, and most of the best Marvel vs. Capcom 3 players in the world just happen to live there and go to it. So I think this event is actually pretty key in advancing the level of play in MvC3 everywhere.

For these reasons, I'm proud to support the event as a sponsor, and I think tonight Mr. Valle and crew will be giving away a few copies of Yomi.

You can watch the stream tonight at 8:30pm, Pacific Time here: http://www.twitchtv.com/leveluplive
You can also follow the contest on Twitter:
@levelupseries
@alexvallesf4
Hashtag #WNF 

Japanese Players Enjoying SF HD Remix

Here's a video of Japanese Street Fighter players (including Otochun and Aniken) playing SF HD Remix. Skip to about 1:05:00 or so for when they finally get going.

They are having such a good time that it makes even more fun to watch. They all laugh (in happiness I think!) when Vega's wall dive doesn't knock down, and when someone lands a fake slide into throw with Bison. They also get excited that Ken can now do his super as a reversal.

With Daigo and Tokido both saying good things about the game, Muteki, Yuu Vega, and Jodim all playing on XBLA, and videos like this one, it seems they are pretty into it. Aniken said this (to Masa) in the comment thread about an HD Remix event there:

> Masa
I also think it would be interesting and fun to have HD at the game center
but we have to face reality, there's nothing we can do about it!

For Ken, Remix Ryu and Sagat are very difficult opponents, it's fun!♪
Looking forward to seeing you at Sunday's tourney!

Too bad the game isn't actually released in Japan, it seems like it would do really well.

Street Fighter 4 Ultra Combos

Lots of people have asked me why the Ultras in Street Fighter 4 work they way they do. I have no inside information on this, nor have I even seen what the designers might have said, but I have a pretty good guess. After walking you through that, we can then ask if we would include such a mechanic in a new, ideal fighting game. I actually don't know the answer, but I can explain the issues.

When I first saw the ultra system a long time ago, I though it was a terrible, terrible idea. My reason was that the last thing casual players wanted was a SECOND super meter. I mean this isn't Guilty Gear, it's supposed to be simple and elegant, and a new super meter in addition to the old one (which has four divisions and multiple uses) is going to be a confusing mess. I think it turns out there was more to the issue than I thought back then, so let's look at all the issues together and see if the overall effect is good or bad.

But first, let's explore how I imagine ultras came to be what they are in this cartoonized, fictional line of thought:

"How can we get casual players interested in this game? There's lots of ways of course, but one way would be really flash super attacks. Yes, that's a natural answer because we already have had super attacks in lots of other Street Fighter games, and now that we can use 3D animation, camera movement, and effects, we'll be able to make these look even better than ever. So far, this sounds great."

Click to read more ...

Some Positives About Street Fighter 4

Yeah there's a lot of problems in SF4, but there are some good things too.

I don't know how effective Gouken is, but his design is interesting. No dragon punch, but a super and ultra dragon punch. A high counter and low counter that act somewhat like a dragon punch, but worse because he has to guess high or low and it loses to the "breaking glass" moves, like Cammy's cannon spike. The ex counter doesn't require you to guess high or low though. I beat Cammy's ultra once with an ex counter, but got hit the second time I tried. Not sure what's up with that. Also, using the counter drains your life and slowly refills it, like using a focus attack. This is an advantage for the most part, because it means your ultra guage is even more full than usual. Because his ultra is guaranteed off a normal throw (and easy), it's basically a throw super...that doubles as the occasional dragon punch super if you really need it. Ironic that landing it is so easy that it's a better "throw super" than Zangief's, at least for me.

It's painful dealing with Zangief's bad-feeling jump, as if he is a flea of some sort, and not having his hop move. And not having his low fierce from Alpha 2 and 3. But his SPD is good, with jab having ridiculously long range (great!) but low damage. SPD startup time is

Click to read more ...

More Street Fighter HD Remix Reviews and Response to the Press

More reviews are in, and it looks like everyone loves the game.

• A+ - 1up
• 100 - Games Radar
• 5/5 - Giant Bomb
• 9.3 - Gamer 2.0
• 9 - Official Xbox Magazine
• 9 - VideoGamer
• 9 - GameStyle
• 9 - GameDaily
• 9 - Team Xbox
• 4.5/5 - GamePro

So first of all thanks for those reviews. But second, it's kind of strange to even think about a score when the real test of the game is whether it falls apart or holds up for years. Also, fighting games are notoriously misunderstood by the press (just look at reviews for Guilty Gear, one of the greatest fighting games series ever). But hey, I won't look a gift-horse in the mouth, so thanks again to the world of game reviewers.

Next though, I read some press on other sites saying how much of a struggle it was for me to make SF HD Remix. Yeah it was. But it was also a struggle for a lot of other people. And when I saw a site go so far as to say "I didn't get much help" in making the game, I feel I should say something on behalf of everyone else who worked on the game. Yes, I did have to fight for a lot of things and a lot of struggles were harder than they should have been, but EVERYONE helped on this game, from Backbone to Capcom to Udon to the fans.

Backbone's lead programmer deserves a lot more praise then he's getting. Again and again he delivered what he said he could even though he set the bar very high for himself. Another programmer helped me with gameplay changes and there would be no fake fireball, no Akuma super, no easier Zangief SPD motion without him. We actually had three producers and I managed to outlast all three of them as they left the company at various points, but the last one hardly slept as she made sure the latest builds were always ready for Capcom and that Capcom's issues were all addressed. Our tech director wrote much of the low level networking code himself. The UI team made awesome menus. Udon's Herculean effort involved them flying around the world to personally oversee and train the art contractors. Capcom coordinated the whole OCRemix effort for new music, not to mention publishing the game.

So even though it was a struggle and even though I had to fight for a lot of things (that probably made me pretty unpopular...), please know that of course I had help. Everyone sacrificed and suffered.

And I shouldn't leave out the players, either. It's not possible to design a game like this in a vacuum, and players contributed many ideas for balance and many hours of playtesting. Keep in mind that lots of players flew across the country on their own dime to help with balancing. Their help is why T.Hawk's dive doesn't knock down anymore, why Vega's Fake Wall Dive doesn't lead to infinite running away anymore, and why Cammy vs. Dhalsim is not a 9-1 match, just to name a few.

Constant struggle or help from all sides, I guess it's just how you look at it.

--Sirlin